Time for a Serious Conversation about Guns–and Those Who Use Them

This picture is of a five-year-old. More specifically, my five-year-old. Energetic and friendly and excited for kindergarten. Now that boy is long past kindergarten. Still energetic and friendly, but now excited for college. In his twelve years of primary and secondary schooling, he never once had to endure a lock-down of his school; never once had to cower under a desk or huddle with other children because someone with a gun lurks nearby, maybe even right in front of him; never had to witness his classmates or his teacher shot and lying bloody in front of him; never had to close his eyes to walk past carnage to exit his school. Maybe he was just lucky.

But no child should have to endure such things. No child. Anywhere.

By the time my sons entered school, mass school shootings were already on the national radar, thanks to the Columbine school shooting in 1999.  And, sadly, mass shootings generally have made regular appearances in their lives since then:  the Westside Middle School shooting in Arkansas, the Beltway sniper attacks, the Amish school shooting, the shooting at a Brookfield hotel where church services were being held, the massacre at Virginia Tech, the shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and others, including a nine-year-old girl, in Tucson, and just this year alone, the Aurora theatre shootings, the shooting at Oak Creek’s Sikh Temple, the shootings at Texas A&M, the shooting at Azana Salon & Spa in Brookfield, the Portland, Oregon, mall shootings, and now the Sandy Hook School shootings in Connecticut.

When Bob Costas addressed Kansas City Chief Jovan Belcher’s murder-suicide during a recent Sunday Night Football half-time show, it took less than a heartbeat for gun advocates’ collective head to explode over the mere suggestion that guns be further regulated.  And all Costas was doing was quoting local sports reporter Jason Whitlock’s words.

But it’s time.  There must be a serious conversation at all levels and in all corners of society. We need to talk meaningfully about gun control and, more deeply, about our gun culture; about domestic violence and mental illness and about their connection to gun violence. 

While in my ideal world, there would be a ban on assault rifles, if not stricter laws about access to guns, I fully realize that such laws would not stop those who are determined to access such weaponry and use them in heinous ways. Some of the guns used in the above-mentioned shootings were purchased legally by the shooters. Thus, access to guns and owning guns isn’t the whole issue. As gun advocates correctly point out, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” As Jon Stewart said on “The Daily Show” shortly after Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot, “Crazy always seems to find a way; it always has” (at approximately 5:00).

But, as Stewart points out and I agree, such a statement need not mean there is nothing that can be done. Any conversation we have about guns, gun violence, and gun culture must go deeper: we must talk about the minds and the motives of the people who use guns. That, I’m afraid, is a murkier conversation.  But we must have it.  Far too many innocent lives have been lost, nay, taken away too soon because someone with the means and the will so desired it.  And perhaps the worst part? By and large, that desire was to shoot randomly.   

My heart is simply broken for the victims of the Sandy Hook School shooting. May each little angel rest in peace. And may we, as a society, honor them by embracing a commitment to truly address the root of the violence that took their lives so that we can spare others from such tragedy.

This Post Has 5 Comments

  1. Nick Zales

    Good post. Any serious discussion of gun control and attacks on innocent women and children must include the fact the U.S. is the largest exporter of arms in the world. To say nothing of drone attacks that kill innocent women and children. Ours is a war government. Controlling individual behavior is one thing, refining government policy which is focused on war and selling arms is another. Killing is killing, whether done by a lunatic or a government.

  2. Carolyn Bach

    This blog post is echoing all our thoughts. It’s time to dig deeper into the fabric of our society’s desire for and access to guns, infatuation with violence as it permeates TV shows, movies, video games, and social media, and mental health issues among our population. This combination is leading to tragic consequences. We can’t accept this and let our young people become desensitized to this type of violence because it’s happening more frequently. The solution will be a long, painful and divided process, but all surely agree action is needed to stop this disturbing trend.

  3. Steven Cochran

    Mexico bans guns. 60,000 murders or so the last few years?

    Its already illegal to kill children, much less possess a gun on school campus, but that didn’t prevent another tragedy.

    We’ve always had guns. There’s just something different culturally playing out it seems. High powered, large magazine assault rifles aren’t some new development.

    When you say we must analyze the minds and motives of people who use guns, are we talking about the 99% who use them legally, or the other 1%?

  4. Andrew Golden

    “When you say we must analyze the minds and motives of people who use guns, are we talking about the 99% who use them legally, or the other 1%?”

    I mean, I think that sums it up right there. I’m not absolutely opposed to passing stricter laws pertaining to gun control; I just haven’t yet been given an explanation as to how those new laws would have prevented any of the massacres you referenced. Were there any high school shootings where the people had the guns legally? We have background checks in place in many states; did it stop Jared Loughner or James Holmes?

    Honestly, I think what does greater damage to the gun control debate are comments like the ones David Clarke made, such as how he suggests that only socialists would suggest gun control and that the 1000 foot “gun free zone” around schools is a mistake. When people like Clarke write things like that, those in favor of gun control begin to believe that everyone opposed to gun control shares those views. I think that — much as we recognize that free speech doesn’t mean you can yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater — there has to be some balance between protecting the Second Amendment and preventing harm to others. I just wish people would sit down and have an honest dialogue as to what that middle ground is.

  5. Mike Sand

    Great posts. Perhaps we need to address our nation’s failure to help our mentally ill receive treatment.

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